ourney. It occurred, Lord Shelburne says, in his own
youth, and the only journeys to London Smith made during the period
which with any reasonable stretching may be called Shelburne's youth,
were made in 1761, 1763, and 1773. Now we have no positive knowledge
of Shelburne being in Scotland any of these years, but in 1761 his
brother, the Hon. Thomas Fitzmaurice, who had been studying under
Smith in Glasgow, and living in Smith's house, left Glasgow for
Oxford; and Shelburne, who, since his father's death that very year,
was taking, as we know from his correspondence with Sir William
Blackstone on the subject, a very responsible concern in his younger
brother's education and welfare, may very probably have gone to
Scotland to attend him back. This circumstance seems to turn the
balance in favour of 1761 and against the other two dates.

It is almost certain that the journey was not in 1773, for Shelburne
would hardly have thought of himself as so young at that date, six
years after he had been Secretary of State, and besides he had
probably cast off his prejudices by that time, and was already (as we
shall presently find) receiving instruction from Smith on colonial
policy in 1767; and whether it was 1761 or 1763, it in either case
shows at what a long period before the appearance of the _Wealth of
Nations_ Smith was advocating those broad principles which struck
Shelburne at the time for their "novelty," and were only fully
comprehended and accepted by him a few years afterwards.

Of Smith's visit to London on this occasion we know almost no
particulars, but I think the notorious incident of his altercation
with Johnson at the house of Strahan the printer must be referred to
this visit. The story was told by Robertson to Boswell and Allan
Ramsay, the painter, one evening in 1778, when they were dining
together at the painter's house, and Johnson was expected as one of
the guests. Before the doctor arrived the conversation happened to
turn on him, and Robertson said, "He and I have always been very
gracious. The first time I met him was one evening at Strahan's, when
he had just had an unlucky altercation with Adam Smith, to whom he had
been so rough that Strahan, after Smith was gone, had remonstrated,
and told him that I was coming soon, and that he was uneasy to think
that he might behave in the same way to me. 'No, no, sir,' said
Johnson, 'I warrant you Robertson and I shall do very well.'
Accordingly he was gentle